In Flux
by Zenilia Poe
Summary: Rose could feel the Doctor’s unguarded thoughts swirling around her in her head the minute their mouths met, and for a moment the universe shone out in front of her like an endless road and she felt as if she were in the TARDIS again. Rose/10.2
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own Doctor Who, and if I did I'd probably screw it up!**

**This is my first ever fanfic. Please be kind and review. It's the only way I know that I didn't waste 4 hours for nothing.**

**BTW -I don't know if this is a one shot yet... I'm still deciding.**

In the middle of Norway, on a desolate beach that was at least an hour's walk from any civilization, the Doctor and Rose held together a long, soul-searching gaze.

Rose thought it was an awkward, funny sort of look to be shared between two such old friends; best friends. She wanted to break contact and look at the sand ahead of her or past him to the water, but he wouldn't let her. Such was the power and passion his eyes held. She saw the very same magnetic and fiery universe that had burned in her first Doctor's eyes, attracting her to him a lifetime ago. In some ways Rose was still the young shop girl who was almost killed by living plastic. In other ways she felt she had had enough experiences for a lifetime.

In her parallel bedroom on the top floor of the mansion, Rose had spent hours wondering what would happen if the dimension cannon suddenly started working and she met the Doctor again. Her thoughts oscillated from ecstatic fantasy reunions to nightmares of yet another tearful abandonment. She worried that things would never be the same between them as it once had been. She worried that he had forgotten her. She worried that she would no longer be able to sense his presence as she used to, or he hers. She worried that their connection was broken indefinitely. She worried that her worrying would make her clumsy and awkward in his presence and she would lose her charismatic 'Rose' luster. But then when it finally happened, when she saw the TARDIS in the street and the faint silhouettes of Donna and the Doctor, she knew that things would always be as they had once been and that their connection could never be severed by time or distance.

She remembered cradling his head beneath her hands and being surprised by how easy their relationship had fallen back into place despite the four-year absence and horrible situation they had found themselves in. Long time no see he joked, even as he was dying.

Now looking upon the Doctor again, Rose felt thoroughly confused, but at the same time things had never been clearer to her. She was sad but also joyous, hopeful yet decidedly hopeless, abandoned but eternally protected, and all this wrapped up into a single moment and a raw gaze. The time passed slowly, and Rose tried to reconcile the new with the old. The Doctor studied her intensely; finally able to understand the things she would give up to be with him. Theirs was an intense, excruciatingly private and unguarded connection, comparable to the feeling of someone seeing you naked and desperate for the first time. It was no wonder that Jackie turned and stalked off silently toward the road.

This Doctor had told her that he loved her. Which was really much more than she had ever expected or dared to hope to hear from him. When she kissed him for the first time, she finally felt him express his emotions passionately and without bridle. Kissing a Time Lord turned out to be a bit different than the usual physical process of kissing a human. Kissing a Time Lord was more of a mental activity: two parts lips and one part telepathy.

Rose could feel the Doctor's unguarded thoughts swirling around her in her head the minute their mouths met, and for a moment the universe shone out in front of her like an endless road and she felt as if she were in the TARDIS again with every possibility at her fingertips. Then as quick as it came the feeling left her and Rose suddenly understood why the Doctor hid his feelings far away and out of sight. If that was a kiss, then she dared to think what involuntary information might be shared via other recreational activities. Reluctantly she began to understand why he all too often ended up abandoning his companions before they got too close.

Rose knew from experience that the original Doctor was incapable of displaying or understanding full human emotions. It was almost as if, as if the new Doctor had been fashioned specifically to suite her needs.

But then again she reasoned, the utterance of those forbidden words was what made this Doctor so glaringly different from the fully Time Lord version. It was far-off, distant, immortal alien that she had fallen in love with, even despite the way he had reeled her in and then thrown her back. In a small, selfish way she had always been proud of her companionship with the Doctor. She had the ability to tame a man that wasn't even a man. After all he had chosen her. Not the others. Her. Now, of his own admission he wanted to spend his life with her, but, then again, not really…

Rose looked down at her feet. She felt the Doctor relax and limply let go of her fingers, so that their arms hung together, barely touching.

This was all wrong. This was not at all the way it meant to be. She should be in the TARDIS laughing about nose less dogs and planning a new and dangerous adventure. The situation in which she found herself now was bittersweet and just plain ironic. She could think of a lot of words to describe being abandoned at Bad Wolf bay with the Doctor's crazy clone. 'Soap opera' seemed to be the best descriptor; ridiculous, corny, totally and in all other ways unfathomable and improbable…

Or was it? Rose knew the Doctor had all of time and space packed into his head. He could see every possible outcome of every timeline in existence if he tried. She faintly remembered a long-winded, techno babble peppered speech about time influx, versus permanent events or something of the like.

"Doctor?" she ventured, tilting her head up again to meet his gaze. He stared at her for a moment, expressionless.

Reading her expression, and still enthralled in the aftertaste of their kiss, he replied without thinking.

"Yeah. This…situation… was always a possibility."

Rose looked down a bit dumbfounded and wondered if he was still in her head, reading her thoughts. She was still a little wary about having her mind invaded. The Doctor as usual, didn't seem to notice, and continued off onto a tangent about time influx and the possibility matrix.

Rose stared at him for quite some time as he babbled, a small smile spreading to her features. His arrogant, cheeky and manic personality appeared un-changed, as was his penchant for the word, 'jiggery-pokery' He was not the same man, and yet he was exactly the same man. Suddenly Rose remembered how afraid she was the first time he regenerated. It had been like a bad joke of which she was helplessly ignorant of the punch line, but when it was all said and done she had ended up growing more attracted to him than ever, eventually falling madly in love and making the decision that she would never leave him.

"Course there are innumerable directions events can take…well, though to be fair, before the reality bomb it was really a very miniscule possibility, quite tiny… time lines got a bit broader after I got shot by that Dalek and then…"

"Doctor?"

The Doctor stopped mid-sentence, a little disappointed to be interrupted mid lecture, but still trying his hardest to please his resistant and completely human Rose.

"What you whispered to me earlier… I mean when you first met me…when you told me to 'run' you grabbed my hand… and just now when I kissed you I felt …" Rose found her voice faltering as she tried to force out the rest of the question. Better now than never.

" Doctor, if you knew that there was a possibility that you might fall in love with me…and that it might cause so much pain, why did take me along in the first place?"

The Doctor sighed lightly and took her hand in his once again. For a short moment there was an ominous silence and Rose held her breath anxiously in her chest, waiting.

"Remember how I told you that some points in time are constantly in a state of flux, which is how we get away with saving the earth all the time? The timeline isn't established, we can still manipulate events how we like."

"Yeah."

"Well some events, chance meetings, births, deaths, disasters and all the like, are points in time that are strictly established and can't be altered without destroying the universe."

"Like the day the Earth burnt out."

" Exactly… "

The Doctor stepped closer to Rose, and in a bold and unDoctorish sort of way, he reached his hand out so that the back of his fingers grazed the side of her face tenderly.

"Rose, you were always going to be a point in my future. Once you saved my life, you had to come with me. Even if it took a second try. The universe was at stake."

Rose was thoroughly moved by the Doctor's declaration, but still felt too awkward and wary to start expressing any overt affection. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea that she was ready to cozy up to him… yet. She still needed some time to think and adjust. The other Doctor was still out there somewhere, but at least he had Donna. Despite a small bit of jealously that Donna would go on traveling in her place, she knew the Doctor would be in good hands. Although truth be told, that didn't really make it much easier.

The Doctor seemed to understand Rose's hesitancy and let go of her hand, albeit reluctantly.

"Suppose there's a chip shop round here?" he ventured lightly.

Rose smiled despite herself, "Probably in about an hour or so that direction. Dunno why you had to go and drop us off in the middle of nowhere. You never could fly the TARDIS to right place… or get to the right time period. "

"…Oi! It wasn't me, well, it wasn't, not technically. And it doesn't really fly, it just sort of materializes from one place to the next."

Despite her new new Doctor wariness, Rose found herself comfortably linking her arm through his and leading him off toward her mum, who was still waiting patiently on the side of the road. The half-human Doctor looked down at Rose jovially.

"Well at least we'll have some time to catch up. I have so many things to tell you… I met Shakespeare and Agatha Christie! Great guy that Shakespeare, I gave him a couple of my best lines…I'll tell you all about it over chips."

Jackie looked over at them, and it was obvious to both of them that she was royally pissed-off.

"Sweetheart did you remember to bring your mobile with you?"

Rose looked down and pulled a square lump from her jacket pocket and holding it in her outstretched palm.

"Mum it doesn't matter. There's no service out here."

"Actually," the Doctor chimed in, "I can probably fix that."

Taking the phone gingerly from Rose's hand, he flipped it over and with a certain excited flare pulled from his pocket the sonic screwdriver.

"Is that the proper Doctors?" Rose asked astonished.

"Rose, first of all I am the proper Doctor. And secondly, it's not like I stole it or anything. It was in my suit pocket."

"Won't he need it?"

"Nah… he's clever! He'll make a new one, a better one, well or so River Song says…"

"Who's River Song?"

"That is a looong complicated story… and… oh here you go Jackie, it should work now. I'll tell you about it someday Rose. But not today. Today I want to think about happier things. I only have one life now. Best not to dwell."

Once again, Rose tentatively put her hand over his heart, feeling the mad beat beneath her fingers.

"One life." she repeated before adding, "a life together."


	2. Chapter 2

It seemed like they had been walking for hours when Rose's mobile started ringing. Rose, who was in the middle of hearing a long and complicated story about the hospital getting transported to the moon, thrust the phone towards Jackie who answered rather harshly.

"Pete! … Where the hell have you been? What? Where are we? … We're in the middle of bloody Norway! I've been trying to phone you for hours!"

Jackie stopped completely in the middle of the road, yelling into the receiver of the mobile like it was a walkie-talkie.

Rose rolled her eyes at the Doctor who had paused momentarily mid-story to stare guiltily at Jackie. After all, the whole thing being stranded thing was sort of his fault, and he had to admit walking long distances was harder with only one heart.

Oblivious to the others, Jackie continued to have a lengthy one-way argument with the phone, and eventually Rose shrugged and motioned for the Doctor to continue talking.

For a moment he paused and took her in, recalling how he had felt the first time he met her. He remembered being aware that she was attractive, but not bothering to take the time to form any specific personal opinion. He was all business then: save the world, last of the Time Lords and all that.

But now as he observed Rose again in the sunlight, with a light breeze lifting stray pieces of hair, and the trademark come-hither smirk lighting her features, the Doctor decided that she was truly beautiful.

As a people, Time Lords were significantly less physically oriented than humans.

They tended to evaluate others based on intrinsic characteristics, rather then the symmetry of the outer shell. Not that he couldn't appreciate an attractive shell as well as the next alien.

Prior to his hybrid humanity he had loved Rose romantically, desiring that she stay with him always.

Now that he was a little more compatible and she was a little less forbidden, he felt he wanted to devour her. And he reminded himself that when the time came he could, because now he truly could spend his life with her if that was still what she wanted.

He wasn't so sure anymore.

Rose let the Doctor study her for a moment, basking in his unadulterated admiration.

She had only seen him look at her like this one time previously. It had been right after he had regenerated, and they were standing near the TARDIS, staring up the stars. He was pointing at the sky, telling her where he would take her away too and she had felt happier at that moment than other in her whole life.

Suddenly Rose turned away from the Doctor, the full impact of what they both had lost hitting her in the stomach like a sucker punch. For a moment her thoughts wandered off to the other Doctor, out there somewhere, traveling who knew when.

Rose decided it was better not to dwell on the things that she couldn't change. No matter how much she wanted to fixate, she knew she must focus on the positive.

After all, she did have the Doctor forever, and in all actuality the traveling was probably a small price to pay for his companionship.

Not to mention that Torchwood had some nifty time traveling gadgets that were just gathering dust in storage.

Rose had refused to let anyone mess with them, religiously heeding the Doctor's lessons about messing with time.

Eventually the right moment would come along when she knew she could trust him again, and then she would let him in on her career perks.

For now she was content to be the adoring groupie to his superstardom. And the Doctor was happy to fill the position of Tyler family entertainer. Even at his most human, the Doctor was still wildly eccentric.

He had spent the last hour in a continuous one-sided conversation that consisted of telling from the very beginning, every minute detail of his adventures since Bad Wolf Bay. For the most part, Rose listened quietly, sometimes throwing in a comment edgewise or making the appropriate sound effect.

While Rose was trying to relive two years of lost time, the Doctor was trying his best to omit any parts of the stories that might disturb his plus one.

At Rose's pleading he had told the tale of meeting Martha Jones, albeit deliberately excluding the part where he engaged in a genetic transfer lip lock.

The Doctor had found himself suddenly more sensitive to other people's feelings. He noticed when he was being overtly rude to Jackie, and when he obliviously interrupted Rose in the middle of sentence, he caught himself and apologized.

In fact, the more he talked about Martha the guiltier he felt about treating her so poorly during their time together. He only wished he could go back and mend the holes he had punched through their friendship.

For her part though, Rose didn't seem all too jealous and the Doctor found himself wishing that she were a little more competitive and a little less nice. He had never realized before how much her protectiveness meant to him.

It was amazing how much a little mortality could do in bridging the emotion gap. He had never before been able to understand certain things about the way humans behaved and had always wondered.

Sure, there was his short stint as John Smith. But this was different, because now with his Time Lord mind intact, he had the ability to appreciate the new experience.

The quiet was suddenly ruined as Jackie let out a irritated wail.

"Pete! We're almost to the town!... Well, send a bloody zeppelin then! Okay. Alright. We'll wait for you in that field right outside of the square. Hurry up then you lout."

The Doctor hoped that Jackie and Pete's relationship was not demonstrative of what his and Rose's would grow to be.

Pretending to absorbed in what Jackie was saying he, out of the corner of his eye, stole another glance at his former companion.

She appeared to be far off and lost in thought. There was a certain hardness to her now, and the Doctor had noticed. He was not surprised. All his companions ended up that way... it was practically in the contract.

But the real question which burned in his mind was whether or not she would ever be able to truly accept him.

When he chose to stay with her in the parallel world and to not fight with himself over the matter, it was with the idea that they would get to spend their life times together.

The Doctors accepted that this was the only way that they could ever have, or see Rose again.

Better one of them than none at all... and the half human was obviously the more appropriate choice.

As much as his full blood counterpart had wanted to stay with Rose, he also knew that she deserved someone who could truly give her everything.

As a regenerating alien, forever would be impossible.

So it was with the greatest love that he had ever felt for any human that he gave her up to his twin.

Both Doctor's knew that of the two the hybrid was the lucky one. And he wanted to be the best partner he could possibly be for Rose, in memory of the sacrifice that his double had made for their happiness.

Immortality could be such a curse, and to be honest, the Doctor was glad he was nearing the end of his regeneration cycles. There was only so much living any being could endure.

But now, to not have her. To feel the beat of one heart, to be permanantly stranded in one time and place, to die, and to not have her with him heart and soul was unbearable. There were no more fish in his sea. Rose was the only one left swimming. And somehow he had to figure out how to prove it to her.

**To be continued...**


End file.
